“The Ball Method” trailer introduces Alice Ball, who discovered treatment for leprosy
In 1915, Alice Ball, a recent graduate from the College of Hawaii with a master’s in Chemistry, started work on investigating the chemical properties of chaulmoogra oil. This extract, derived from the seeds of the chaulmoogra tree, was first used to treat leprosy in China over six hundred years ago but the substance was too viscous to be an effective treatment. Instead of circulating throughout the body, the thick oil accumulated under the skin as a painful blister.
Kava tea was also used by leprosy sufferers to ease the pain of the disease, which meant Alice’s earlier work on identifying the active ingredients in the Kava root made her the ideal candidate to crack the hundreds-year-old problem trapped in the plant’s seed to develop an effective, injectable treatment.
The twenty-one second The Ball Method trailer opens with a nurse telling Alice Ball (Kiersey Clemons) that “the patient” did not get far, as the hospital’s guards caught up to him right away. We see Alice looking out a window where she sees the young…
